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Deal Details
Seagate has 26TB Seagate External USB 3.0 Desktop Hard Drive (STKP26000400) on sale for $249.99. Shipping is free.
Thanks to Community Member SplendidSeed435 for sharing this deal.
About this product:
Thanks to Community Member SplendidSeed435 for sharing this deal.
About this product:
- Easy-to-use desktop hard drive—simply plug in the power adapter and USB cable
- USB 3.0 allows fast file transfers for efficient data management
- Drag-and-drop file saving right out of the box
- Automatic recognition of Windows and Mac computers for simple setup (Reformatting required for use with Time Machine)
- Enjoy peace of mind with the included limited warranty and Rescue Data Recovery Services
Editor's Notes
Written by SubZero5 | Staff- About this Store:
- Refer to Seagate's Return Policy here.
- Additional Information:
- This price matches our recent and popular Frontpage Deal.
- Please see the original post for additional details and/or view the Wiki and forum comments for further helpful discussion if available.
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Seagate has 26TB Seagate External USB 3.0 Desktop Hard Drive (STKP26000400) on sale for $249.99. Shipping is free.
Thanks to Community Member SplendidSeed435 for sharing this deal.
About this product:
Thanks to Community Member SplendidSeed435 for sharing this deal.
About this product:
- Easy-to-use desktop hard drive—simply plug in the power adapter and USB cable
- USB 3.0 allows fast file transfers for efficient data management
- Drag-and-drop file saving right out of the box
- Automatic recognition of Windows and Mac computers for simple setup (Reformatting required for use with Time Machine)
- Enjoy peace of mind with the included limited warranty and Rescue Data Recovery Services
Editor's Notes
Written by SubZero5 | Staff- About this Store:
- Refer to Seagate's Return Policy here.
- Additional Information:
- This price matches our recent and popular Frontpage Deal.
- Please see the original post for additional details and/or view the Wiki and forum comments for further helpful discussion if available.
Community Voting
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Top Comments
You might not know your drive is doing this. If you have shucked the drive, download seagate seatools and run it. While running, if your drive has idle A set to the short time you will see that the drive goes active/idle every few seconds.
To address your Seagate drive frequently transitioning from active to idle (likely due to aggressive internal power management features like head parking), you can use the SeaChest_PowerControl utility to adjust or disable the relevant settings. This is common with Seagate drives, where Extended Power Conditions (EPC) modes—such as idle_a (initial low-power idle) and idle_b (head parking)—can cause these transitions even when Windows power plans are set to keep the HDD active. The default idle_b timer is often around 2 minutes, but system activity or shorter timers can make it feel more frequent, like 10-20 seconds in some cases.
Step 1: Identify Your Drive
Open Command Prompt as Administrator.
Navigate to the folder where you extracted SeaChest utilities (e.g., cd C:\Path\To\SeaChest).
Run: SeaChest_PowerControl.exe --scan
This lists all drives with their handles (e.g., PD0, PD1). Note the PD number for your Seagate drive (look for the model and serial number).
Step 2: Check Current Power Settings
Run: SeaChest_PowerControl.exe -d PDx --showEPCSettings (replace PDx with your drive's handle, e.g., PD0).
This displays EPC settings, including timers for idle_a, idle_b, idle_c, and standby_z. Timers are in 100-millisecond units (e.g., 1200 = 120 seconds or 2 minutes). Look for enabled timers (*) under idle_a or idle_b, as these often cause frequent idling or head parking.
Step 3: Disable or Adjust the Problematic Idle Mode
The most effective fix is to disable the idle_a mode ( initial low-power idle) or set its timer higher. This persists across reboots and power cycles on most Seagate drives.
To disable idle_a entirely: SeaChest_PowerControl.exe -d PDx --idle_a disable
To set a higher timer (e.g., 10 minutes = 6000 units): SeaChest_PowerControl.exe -d PDx --idle_a 6000
Run --showEPCSettings again to confirm changes (the idle_a timer should show 0 or disabled).
Step 4: Verify the Changes
Run: SeaChest_PowerControl.exe -d PDx --checkPowerMode to see the current state (e.g., Active or Idle).
Monitor your drive for 10-20 minutes with no activity. It should stay active longer without idling. Use tools like CrystalDiskInfo to check if head load/unload cycles (SMART attribute 193) stop increasing rapidly.
Hope this helps some people.
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73 Comments
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That sucks. But it's a very cheap drive, so it's a good deal if you have multiple backups.
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You might not know your drive is doing this. If you have shucked the drive, download seagate seatools and run it. While running, if your drive has idle A set to the short time you will see that the drive goes active/idle every few seconds.
To address your Seagate drive frequently transitioning from active to idle (likely due to aggressive internal power management features like head parking), you can use the SeaChest_PowerControl utility to adjust or disable the relevant settings. This is common with Seagate drives, where Extended Power Conditions (EPC) modes—such as idle_a (initial low-power idle) and idle_b (head parking)—can cause these transitions even when Windows power plans are set to keep the HDD active. The default idle_b timer is often around 2 minutes, but system activity or shorter timers can make it feel more frequent, like 10-20 seconds in some cases.
Hope this helps some people.
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I don't want to come across as a WD fan boy because I actually think they're cutthroat pirates. I also don't think any drive is failure proof, and I've had drives fail from virtually every vendor (many that don't sell under their name anymore). Still, Seagate leads the list for me.
The main thing I can't stand about Seagate is their dismissal of any responsibility on their consumer products, and that's what it is with their *1 year* warranty. They used to come out and say it's a 2000 hour power on warranty, but now they say *1 Year* even though (on some models) it's really still 2000 hours. In other words, leave your drive plugged in and powered on, and you're all done in under 3 months. That represents some pretty shoddy work if you ask me....
I was an early adopter of WD Red drives (to go in synology NAS boxes) and had many (4+) immediate failures (their 3TB drives were utter garbage). I worked with the engineers at WD to solve some issues (probably can't even get to these people any more) and while there were specific issues, it came down to poor quality, and IMO fraud. Remember, early Red drives were just inferior Green drives with a new label and WD, being the pirates that they are, figured they could get away with it (you could actually query the drive's firmware to see the truth). That lie didn't always work for them....
Drive manufactures today are less than reputable whenever they can get away with it...
PS - ask yourself, Why does seagate have to offer "recovery services"?
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